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Just completed mixing and mastering Talk to Your Heart, by Carolyn Arnold and friends. 11 songs of great harmonies and nicely picked (and bowed) acoustic instruments.

Carolyn is a staple in the Seattle Old Time music community. She recorded the tracks with her friend Forrest Newton at the helm and handed them off to me for mixing and mastering.

I don’t claim to be a mastering engineer. However, Carolyn was on a budget and looking to sell some CDs while busking and hand out to friends and family. Cubase has a great set of tools to gel the songs together sonically while adding some nice sparkle and polish.

While researching my new recording setup, I eventually settled on a firewire mixer solution for recording using Cubase 5. After checking out a number of different options, the Mackie 1640i rose to the top for the following reasons:

Up to 16 simultaneous inputs to computer (for recording)

Up to 16 simultaneous outputs from computer (for mixing out of the box, external effects, re-amping, etc)

Wrote the first set of verses while living in Seattle. Finished the final section after moving to Boston. A nostalgia tune that incorporates Sam Russell style of ‘too many overdubs’ as well as some of his melodies. This one’s been finished for a while, but I waited to get some Bass and Drum additions – as added so kindly by Adam Cat and Matt ‘Cutty’ Foster.

I had this melody stuck in my head so I wrote it down and added a B part. When the lyrics wouldn’t come, I asked Michali for some help. She gave me a general idea, including the first few lines. I recorded it and she thought it was too slow and boring. So I recorded it again (with some lyric tweaks) with her feedback in mind. It was a great exercise and I hope it will convince her to help me more often :)